Saturday, December 19, 2009

Live Blogging the Blizzard

For once a snowstorm prediction is proving accurate. we returned from a holiday party last night just as the first flakes were beginning to fall. This morning there was between 8 and 12 inches of snow across my yard and driveway.

The front door at about 9 am this morning.

The front steps and yard were completely buried.

The problem with my yard is that I have a twenty foot wide townhouse and half the front yard is the driveway. Another third is the front steps and the sidewalk. And then there is a tree in the middle of the rest. Any snowfall over six inches because a civil engineering problem. I have to grade the snow around the yard, calculating the angle of repose and doing strategic cut and fill work to allow more snow to be shoveled later. Here is the Buzz Flag before and after the first shovel. Update: After the second shovel, the post for the flag is nearly buried.

And here is the driveway finished for the first pass:

Update (2:30 p.m.):

The bobcat that was plowing our cu-de-sac conked out and had to be towed away. It quit right around 11 and a tow truck came out about 2. It took them about an hour to get it on the truck bed. At one point they were using a pickup truck with a plow blade to push it.

Update 2 (11:45 p.m.): The whole family came out for the final shovel of the night. You can see my son and I in this video clip finishing off the drive and the steps.

One final look at the close to being buried Buzz Flag:

But when the sun sets and the Christmas lights come on, there is a glow and peacefulness to the neighborhood that make the hassle and backbreaking work of the snow worth it.

3 comments:

OK, I'm envious. I live right in the heart of Germany, where it used to snow a lot in the winter. We've had a light dusting and it's been too cold to snow for days. It has just started up again, but it really isn't much. Plus, it's all supposed to thaw on Christmas Eve. You live in freaking Maryland and you have almost more snow than we've had here total in 4 years.